Part 28 (1/2)

”'Why should mamma be glad, little one?' I asked.

”'Mamma will be glad,' she said positively. 'I know she will be glad when I tells her.'

”We'd sat down by this time, and I began to talk to them about their mamma. Mamma very good, very kind, very pretty, they both agreed; and then they went on telling me about their home in London, and their carriage and amus.e.m.e.nts. Presently they stopped, and I could see the eldest wanted to say something particular, for she puckered up her forehead as she always did when she was very serious; and then she said, with her hands folded before her, almost as if she was saying a lesson:

”'Mamma very happy woman. She's got two little girls and baby-brother, and papa love her so much; but there's one thing keeps her from being quite happy.'

”'Is there, missy?' I asked. 'She ought to be happy with all these things. What is it?'

”'Mamma once had someone do a great thing for her. If it hadn't been for him Nina and sissy and little baby-brother could never have been born, and papa would never have had dear mamma to love; but it cost the man who did it a great deal--all he cared for; and now he won't let mamma and papa and us love him and help him; and it makes mamma unhappy when she thinks of it.'

”Here she had evidently finished what she had heard her mamma say, for her forehead got smooth again, and she began to fill my pockets with sand.

”'It don't sound likely, missy, that doesn't,' I says. 'It don't stand to reason nohow. You can't have understood what mamma said.'

”'Mamma said it over and over again, lots of time,' Nina said. 'Nina quite sure she said right.'

”We didn't say no more about it then, though after the children had gone I wondered to myself how a chap could go on so foolish as that.

Well, sir, three days after come round from Whitby this very boat, the _Grateful Mary_. She was sent care of Joe Denton; and as that was me, I had her hauled up on the beach till I should hear whose she was.

Several visitors that had been out with me had said, promiscuous like, that they should like to have a boat of their own, and I supposed they had bought her at Whitby and sent her down, though why they should have sent her to my care I couldn't quite see.

”Two days afterwards them children come down, and says:

”'We want you to go through the town to the other cliff with us, Joe.'

”'I can't,' says I. 'I'm all right talking to you here, missies; but I shouldn't be a credit to you in the town, and your pa wouldn't be best pleased if he was to see you walking about in the streets with a boatman.'

”'Papa said we might ask you, Joe.'

”I shook my head, and the little ladies ran off to their nurse, who come back with them and says:

”'Master told me to say he should be pertickler glad if you would go with the young ladies.'

”'Oh, very well,' I says; 'if their pa don't object, and they wishes it, I'd go with 'em anywheres. You wait here a quarter of an hour, while I goes and cleans myself, and I'll go with you.'

”When I comes back the youngest takes my hand, and the oldest holds by my jacket, and we goes up into High Street, and across to the other cliff. We goes along till we comes to a pretty little cottage looking over the sea. There was a garden in front, new planted with flowers.

”'Are you sure you are going right?' says I, when they turned in.

”They nodded, and ran up to the door and turned the handle.

”'Come in, Joe,' they said; and they dragged me into a parlor, where a lady and gentleman was sitting.

”The gentleman got up.

”'My little girls have spoken so much to me about you, Joe, that I feel that we know each other already.'

”'Yes, sir, surely,' says I.